Words
by YourOnlyBelle
Summary: A season 4 one shot examining Derek’s feelings post LoveAddiction episode 402.  Inspired by the song “Words” by Darren Hayes.


-1Words

MarilynsChild/YourOnlyBelle

Rating: Erm…R/Teen, whatever. There are allusions to sex.

Genre: Drama/Angst

Disclaimer: If I owned Grey's Anatomy, I would give Patrick Dempsey whatever he wanted. Mer/Der getting married, Derek getting awesome storylines, hot amazing sex in his trailer…what? It's probably a good thing I don't own Grey's Anatomy.

Summary: A season 4 one shot examining Derek's feelings post Love/Addiction (episode 402). Inspired by the song "Words" by Darren Hayes.

He had thought he knew what he was getting into, what he was getting from this arrangement. From the second his lips had pressed against hers in that tiny on call room, he had thought he knew where this was going, where he was being taken. The pain in his chest now was forcing him to see the truth. He was entirely lost. He had no directions, no map to her feelings, nothing to show him what he could hope for, where he could put any last shred of hope.

She was nothing like the girl he had fallen in love with a year earlier. Her strength had astounded him, her vulnerability teased him, her smile plagued him, her tears beckoned him to her. Now, her strength had dwindled. In one impossible second his girlfriend's strength had fallen into nothing. She had turned from him, wouldn't let him save her. Not that he could have. His own strength had faded away. Until he had realized she was his everything, the person he had searched for his entire life, he had been as weak as she, possibly weaker. He hadn't recognized himself until he realized he needed her.

And now here he was. Alone but not alone. In love but hurting. Treading water but drowning. Needing her, but begging for a release. His head screamed at him for following her out of the hospital, his heart for a moment believed this could work. She could give him more. Tonight was the night. Tonight was the night she would let him stay in bed, let him wrap his arms around her. Let him love her. He needed to love her, needed to be there for her. Needed her. She was his everything, his entire world. But his world was fading fast and he knew he had to do something, say something.

But he knew if he said anything, this would destroy this delicate balance they had created, this juvenile, delicate sexual affair that gave him what he needed, but left him with nothing. He needed to be around her, he needed to hold her, to breathe her in. Talking to her would destroy it. So instead he climbed into bed with her, satisfied her, craved her screams and moans, and then tried to ignore the sharp pains, the hurt carefully carving his heart in two. His own release caused his thoughts to temporarily stop, the orgasmic haze leaving him entirely satiated.

Then she would turn from him, her back facing him as she curled herself into a ball, both literally and metaphorically. He didn't miss the irony in this. He didn't miss that where she had once talked to him, once craved his comfort and love, she now closed herself off. She was fine. She was okay. She was great. She didn't need him. He lay in bed next to her, catching his breath, his thoughts, neither of them saying a word. A word. It was all he wanted from her. A word to show him that he wasn't torturing himself. But she closed herself off until the next round. And the cycle would repeat. All the while, he waited. He waited for hope.

She wasn't ready for this. He understood that. He understood she was a mess. He understood her emotions, her beliefs, her thoughts were lightyears behind his own. She had been hurt, damaged, broken. No one in her life had ever tried to show her happiness, tried to give her love. He understood that. He hardly blamed her for it. She couldn't let him in. She let her friends in. But she was incapable of letting him in. No matter how much he wanted it. No matter how much he wanted to be let in, to be her confidant, her lover, her boyfriend, her everything…she denied him entrance. She held him at arm's length, making rules, forcing him to swim in some outer ocean, waving to her for some sort of life-saving device. She rarely threw it out to him.

So he waited. He waited for the life-saving. He waited to be allowed in. He had sex with her, thrusting into her, trying to pretend this would draw her out. Trying to pretend that the second round, the third, the fourth would do more than wear him out entirely. He wanted to believe she would open up to him, she would let go of her past and make him her future. Begging hadn't worked, confessing his love hadn't worked, nothing had worked. This…this had to work. This would coax her to give him a chance. This would allow him to show her she couldn't give up on them. Not after all they had been through. He could love her. He could be with her.

"You need to go," she whispered breathlessly, her face nuzzled in his neck.

"I do?" he tried to smile jauntily, tried to ignore the seriousness of the statement.

"You know you do," she sighed, pulling away from him. "S&M only. Sex and mockery. We agreed. Broken up people---"

"Don't sleep over, I know," he tried not to growl. Tried not to snap. "Give me ten minutes to think normally."

"Okay," she nodded, bringing the blankets up and over her naked body, pulling out of his grasp. "Don't fall asleep though. I'll wake you up."

He didn't respond to that. There was nothing to say. The tone of her voice, the words stabbed at him, leaving thousands of invisible bleeding cuts, only made worse by the constant repeat in his head. The constant playback of every word she had said in the past three weeks. She had cut him down, paralyzed him, left him with nothing but a overwhelming need to hear her, to see her, to breathe her, to be with her. But she didn't need him. She was fine. She was always fine. She hid from him, shutting herself down until he left, until he wasn't around anymore.

He didn't understand what had gone wrong. He wasn't able to pinpoint the moment she had disappeared from him, had locked herself away and denied him the key, the code, whatever it took to reach her. He wanted to figure it out. He wanted to sit down and write out the past few months, try to figure out what had taken her from him, what had stolen their relationship. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. They had just ended up this way.

He turned to look at her, at the small smile playing at her lips and ignored the surge of need that shot through him, rising steadily as he ran his hand over hers, grasping at it gently. It wasn't the need that came with addiction. He was by no means addicted to her. It had been a mistake to assume it earlier. Addiction suggested something evil, something overpowering, something that needed to cease. It was only that he loved her. He loved her so desperately it was easy to mistake the need for addiction. Easy to assume she was something entirely wrong and bad. He wasn't addicted to her. He didn't need her for some momentary hit of pleasure. She was the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with, no one thought to call that addiction. Married people were not addicted to each other, they didn't need to give each other up. He wasn't addicted to her. He was in love with her. And he wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.

He leaned over and kissed her lips, softly at first and then slowly deepening the kiss. He ran his hands up her body as her arms wrapped around him. "More?" she murmured.

"Yes," he sighed, his mouth moving down her neck, stopping for a moment to look in her darkening eyes, at the smile on her lips. And the need was suddenly replaced with love. An overpowering, overwhelming love that caused him to pull back.

"What?" she breathed.

"I should go," he murmured, pulling away from her and grabbing his shirt, quickly slipping it on.

"Go?"

"Unless you want me to stay," he suggested, watching her carefully, again surprised by the look in her eyes. The dark green pleaded with him to stay, but then the grey swirled within it, tortured and needing him to leave. They were broken up. They were having sex. And now they were staring at each other, both of them daring the other to break this, to end it. It was a delicate dance, and he had skipped a step. She was thrown off balance and she didn't say a word. Not one word. He had messed this up. For a moment, he had thrown her off and she needed a second to crawl back into herself, to hide from him. And then the fear came, the all-consuming fear that if he gave her a choice, she wouldn't choose correctly and he'd have to face what was actually happening. "Forget it," he murmured.

"Okay," she nodded, and somehow, that word hurt him more than any other.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"On call room after my cordotomy."

"Definitely," she smiled, reaching up to kiss him. "Night, Derek."

He smiled softly at her, running his thumb down her jaw line, wondering why he suddenly felt even an ounce of hope. She was still hiding. Still pushing him away. And yet, the words hidden in the kiss, hidden in her eyes, hidden in her simple conversation gave him hope that one day, he would finally hear them. He would finally actually hear them instead of seeing them. "Night, Meredith."

**Author's Note: So…yeah. I heard this song and just…it made me think of Derek. And then the damn writer's blog made it sound like Derek's love for Meredith was equal to an addiction, which I firmly believe is bullshit. But there's really not a lot to say to this. Unless I comment on the style, which is less fanfic and more my own personal writing style. More colorful, more detailed language, more inner thinking than anything else. I love writing characters analyzing thoughts and actions and emotions, which usually leads to plotless ramblings. Anyway…lyrics at the end of this. Thanks for reading! And don't forget to review and make me smile!**

_**"Words"**_

_Darren Hayes_

Gimme a taste of what's to come  
Give me a medicine  
Teach me a lesson, maybe I deserve to know  
Cut me down to size and paralyze me  
With the contents of your pretty little head

Gimme somewhere else to go  
Give me one thing  
Tell me something I don't really need to know  
I am so afraid of breaking what we made  
It is delicate and lovely  
But it's a weight above me

And your words are like weapons  
But you'll keep them inside  
They cut like a knife  
And you keep it together  
Those feelings inside  
There's nowhere to hide but away from me  
And I just wanna listen to your words

I'd like to step into your world  
Show me a secret  
I promise to keep it safe and sheltered from the storm  
I would cross the great divide that keeps me swimming  
Treading water from your shore

Now I wanna coax you from your hell  
Into an alley, the hidden valley  
Where the truth can surely spill  
I wanna take the weight that drags you to the ground  
Spare this treasure that I found

But your words are like weapons  
But you'll keep them inside  
They cut like a knife  
And you keep it together  
Those feelings inside  
There's nowhere to hide but away from me  
And I just wanna listen...

There's a lock, someone's stolen the key  
They took it away from me  
Somewhere that noone can read ya  
I see a bible  
I see a bible in your eyes  
All those codes and hidden meanings  
Full of metaphor  
and something for the faithless in me

But your words are like weapons  
But you'll keep them inside  
They cut like a knife  
And you keep it together  
Those feelings inside  
There's nowhere to hide  
And your words are like weapons  
But you'll keep them inside  
They cut like a knife  
And you keep it together  
Those feelings inside  
There's nowhere to hide but away from me  
And I just wanna listen to your words  



End file.
